ba-athist-politicians

"The President is the President of Syria, not a faction of Syrians, and the First Lady supports him in that role.""

"We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way. He has not led. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside."

"When the refugees realize that their return is conditioned on coordination with Bashar al-Assad's regime, they won't return, because Bashar al-Assad himself was behind their displacement."

"The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. His calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow while he is imprisoning, torturing and slaughtering his own people."

"...President Assad, who is resorting to brutal military force against his own people and who is responsible for the situation, has lost all legitimacy and can no longer claim to lead the country. We call on him to face the reality of the complete rejection of his regime by the Syrian people and to step aside in the best interests of Syria and the unity of its people."

"He is not going to lead the programme of change in Syria now. He has shown he is not capable of reform. His position is untenable. There is no process of change that leaves him intact."

"In essence, I see the Syria war as a wrong one. If we had any sense, and if the Qods Force had not had excessive aspirations, Bashar Assad would have been toppled in 2011 because of the Arab Spring, and his dictatorial, oppressive Ba'thist regime would have fallen. We could have maintained good ties with those who would have replaced him in a democratic manner. That way, Iran's resources would not have been wasted in Syria."

"if instead of supporting Bashar Assad's tyrannical regime we protect the Syrian people from ISIS – then Turkey, Russia, America, and Iran can unite and decide that democracy should be established in Syria and that Assad must go."

"Bashar al-Assad is a criminal, he will have to be tried and answer for his crimes before international court."

"A day will come when international justice will give its verdict on Bashar al-Assad who is massacring his people."

"That was how his country was branded by the dictator: Souriyya al-Assad, the Syria of Assad, as though it were private property. Drilled into children’s heads at school, written on the walls and on banners hanging from bridges, the phrase made clear there was no escaping the Assads, father and son. Then came 2011 and the Arab uprisings. Timid yearnings for freedom became a flood of people on the streets of Syria demanding the fall of the dictator. Millions took to the street. Yassin glimpsed the contours of a more hopeful future. So how could it be that when he returned to his hometown of Raqqa, in the summer of 2013, he found himself at the epicenter of a conflict not his own, looking over the ruins of his life, having been robbed of his soul, his love, his family. Yassin and millions of Syrians were rebelling against tyranny, but their country found itself caught between the spiritual heirs of Ibn Abdelwahhab and the upholders of Khomeini’s legacy; between the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)."

"Throughout 2011 and 2012, Assad steadily lost his grip on large parts of the country. In Washington and European capitals, presidents and prime ministers believed his days were numbered. But they had underestimated the dictator with no conscience. He was the true heir of his father. He would make no concessions; his approach was “Assad, or we burn the country.” And he would do just that. The Syrian uprising and the subsequent brutal war have been characterized from many perspectives. Most cite big geopolitical events for saving Assad, like President Obama’s reluctance to intervene as he had done in Libya, or his backing down from a promise to punish Assad for using chemical weapons against his people in 2013. But the longer the outside world allowed Assad to kill, torture, and imprison with impunity, the more the revolution fractured. The Syrian battle for freedom was in a race against the inexorable radicalization and militarization of any revolution that drags on too long. As rage and despair built up, the revolutionaries picked up arms, rebel factions formed and splintered. The revolution was also in a race against those who saw an opportunity in the chaos—two very different groups of men in black, bearing different flags, enemies in fact, had been scouting the terrain. They weren’t even Syrians."

"Bashar al-Assad′s regime is by no means secular; it is sectarian. When it comes to Muslim-majority countries, many people in the West tend to adopt what I call Huntingtonian secularism, defining secularism in an oversimplified culturalist way as something that is basically against Islam."

"In Assadʹs prisons, thereʹs no such thing as a pampered prisoner."

"I'm not a puppet. I wasn't made by the west to go to the west or any other country. I'm Syrian. I'm made in Syria. I have to live in Syria and die in Syria."

"[Enemies of Syria] are the enemies of the people and the enemies of God. And the enemies of God will go to hell."

"We are facing an external attack against us, which is more dangerous than any other previous wars... We are dealing with those who are extremists, who only know the language of killing and criminality."

"The policy is crucial thing for us, when they started supporting the terrorists with such projects, or plans, or steps; this is where you can have more chaos in the world, that's another question, Do the United States have interests in having more chaos around the world or the United States have more interests in having stability around the world? That's another question, of course the United States can create chaos, they've been creating chaos for the last 56 years around the world, It's not something new. Are they going to make it more...worse, more prevailing? That's another question. But it's not about me, it's not about the president, it's about the whole situation in the world, 'cause you cannot separate the situation in Syria from the situation in the Middle East, when the Middle East is not stable, the world cannot be stable."

"They may attack civillians, and I cannot blame the innocents in the United States for the bad intentions of their officials, this is not correct, and as I said many times, I don't consider the United States as direct enemy as they don't occupy my land."

"With every treacherous shell that had fallen, the enemies’ hopes would grow that Aleppo would become another Aleppo, one that never existed throughout history, an Aleppo that does not constitute with its twin Damascus the wings by which the homeland soars; rather an Aleppo whose people would stand with traitors in front of masters, kneeling and prostrating themselves before them, begging for a few dollars and much disgrace. That was in their dreams; but in our real world, with every shell that fell, fear fell and the will to challenge grew. With every martyr, nationalist spirit grew and faith in the homeland became stronger. In our real world, it remained the real Aleppo, the Aleppo of history, nobility, and authenticity. And because it is so, its people did not settle for steadfastness just in the sense of bearing of pain and suffering and acceptance of the status quo; but rather in the sense of work and production that persisted throughout the years of the siege despite the conditions that contradict any economic sense."

"The most important factor is how long are the supporters of those terrorists are keep going to keep supporting them, especially Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, with endorsements of some Western countries including United States, if you don't have that support it won't take more than a few months....That depends on how much the support of terrorist have in Turkey, in Saudi money to have more terrorists coming to Syria, their aim is to prolong the war, so they can prolong it if they want, they've already succeeded in that. That depends on that. If you're talking about how much is going to take as only Syrian conflict, isolated conflict, this is what it won't take for a few months but if it is not isolated conflict as it is the case today, with the interferences of many regional and international powers, it will be going to take some time, and no one has the answer as we have, of course, nobody knows how the war is going to develop..."

"Talk about the reality, about the facts, when to talk about children being killed, children of who? where? how? you're talking about propaganda, about media campaign, about sometimes fake pictures on the internet, we cannot talk but ones of the facts. We can talk about the facts, I cannot talk about allegations."

"When we talk about "clean war," when there is no casualties, no civilians, no innocent people to be killed, that doesn't exist, no one could make it, no war in the world..."

"Since the beginning of this crisis, we have the same motto "Assad must go" many times from nearly every Western officials in different level whether leader or foreign minister and other officials...we never cared about it...we never, so you cannot talk about this threat, this is an interference in our internal issues; we're not going to respond to, as long as i have the support of Syrian people, I don't care about whether...including the President of United States himself, anyone, so it's same for us, that's why...say Clinton and Trump and what Obama said, for me nothing, we don't put it on our political map; we don't waste our time with those rhetorics or even 'demands'"

"Whatever (Valerie) Amos or any other official or any organization say something against us doesn't mean it's real. We have to verify what they say and is it the part of propaganda? is it politicized? or what..."

"Every 'brute reaction' was by an individual, not by an institution, that's what you have to know, There is a difference between having a policy to crackdown and between having some mistakes committed by some officials. There is a big difference, We don't kill our people… no government in the world kills its people, unless it's led by a crazy person, There was no command to kill or be brutal."

"You are mixing between the protesters and the killings, it's different, now we are having terrorists in many places...killing, not only now, from the very beginning, now it's recognized by the media that's the difference, that from the very first few weeks we had those terrorists they are getting more and more, more aggressive, they have been killing. we have 1100 soldiers and policemen killed, who killed them? "peaceful demonstrators"? this is not logical, this is unpalatable..."

"When, but you, to be frank with you, Barbara, I, you don't live here...how did you know all this? you have to be here to see. We don't see this. So it cannot depend on what you hear in the United States."

"Had this 'Spring' been genuine, it would've started in the backward Arab countries. Were it a call for freedom, democracy, justice, it would've began in the most oppressive and tyrannical states. The states behind every hardship that befell this nation, and every war against it. States behind the intellectual and religious deviation and moral decline. Their existence is the best success for the west and the main reason for Israel's continued existence. There is no clearer evidence than their current stand regarding the Israeli aggression against Gaza. Where is the 'alleged' zeal and passion that they showed towards Syria or the Syrian people? Why haven't they supported Gaza with money and arms? Where are their jihadists and why didn't they send jihadists to defend our people in Palestine?"

"It is an integrated chain of events: from the occupation of Palestine, to the invasion of Iraq and trying to divide it now and the division of the Sudan all planned by Israel and the West and always executed by the states of tyranny and backwardness in our Arab world. Was it not Abdul Aziz Ibn Abdul Rahman al-Faisal [Ibn Saud] who conceded to Britain that he does not object to giving Palestine to the ‘poor’ Jews in 1915? Did those states not incite the 1967 war, whose price we are still paying today, in order to get rid of the Abul Naser ‘phenomenon’? Did those states not support Iran under the Shah, only to stand against it when it decided to support the Palestinian people and turn the Israeli embassy into a Palestinian embassy after the revolution? Those are the countries which made the ‘King Fahd Peace Initiative’ in 1981 and threatened the Palestinians with rivers of blood if they don’t accept it. When the Palestinian factions rejected it, and in less than a year, there was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the ejection of the PLO from Lebanon, not out of concern for Lebanon, but for Israel. Those same states surprised us in 2002 with their greatest concession: ‘normalization in return for peace,’which was later modified to become the ‘Arab Peace Initiative’in the Beirut summit. When Israel attacked Lebanon in 2006, it was those same countries that encouraged Israel and the West not to accept a cease-fire until the Lebanese resistance was destroyed, describing them as ‘adventurous.’ Because these satellite countries succeeded in their tasks, they were charged with funding chaos under the name of the ‘Arab spring,’ and with leading the Arab League after other Arab countries abandoned their roles. The Arab League itself was reduced to summoning NATO and imposing a siege on the Arab states that refused to comply. All of these events constitute a strongly linked chain aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause; all the money spent by those countries since their creation has been for this purpose. And here they are today playing the same role: in Gaza through Israeli terrorism, and in Syria through terrorism belonging to 83 nationalities. The methods may differ but their objective is the same."

"None of these allegations you mentioned are concrete, all of them are allegations. You can bring photos from anyone and say this is torture. Who took the pictures? Who is he? Nobody knows. There is no verification of any of this evidence, so it’s all allegations without evidence... It’s funded by Qatar, and they say it’s an anonymous source. So nothing is clear or proven. The pictures are not clear which person they show. They’re just pictures of a head, for example, with some skulls. Who said this is done by the government, not by the rebels? Who said this is a Syrian victim, not someone else? For example, photos published at the beginning of the crisis were from Iraq and Yemen."

"You have to convince your audiences, you cannot mention such a picture without verifying who are those and where and everything about, just to put it in front of the audience, tell them “they’ve been killed by the Syrian soldiers.” At the end, these are allegations. We have to talk about concrete evidence, at the end. That’s how you can base your judgment. Anyone can say whatever he wants."

"Finding a link between Bashar Assad′s regime and the rise of the so-called Islamic State will not come as a surprise to many Syrians. Unlike the image the regime has been trying to sell to world media that Assad is fighting IS, there is well-documented evidence of the Assad dictatorship′s contributions to the IS tale of terror."

"Bashar al-Assad’s hold on power, to which he is clinging, and for which he is also prepared to commit genocide."

"The Assad regime is absolutely monstrous and responsible for a large majority of the atrocities."

"Russia, Iran and Hezbollah openly supported the Assad regime from the outset. But why have the US and the nations of the West, which are apparently so concerned with respect for human rights, done nothing to stop the terrible violence of the Assad regime? Is the so-called "Islamic State" a logical consequence of the violence of the Assad regime?"

"The Assad dictatorship is conducting an outright campaign of annihilation against its own population."

"The tyranny of Assad will always give rise to extremist violence, whether it is called "Islamic State" or known by another name. Western societies are increasingly equating the terror of the Assad regime with that of "Islamic State", even going so far as to describe Assad as the evidently lesser evil. This despite the fact that Assad has killed a quarter of a million Syrians with barrel bombs and chemical weapons alone, while IS has between 10,000 and 20,000 people on its conscience (exact figures are not known). In addition, the deployment of Assad's air force and the besieging of cities by government troops have driven several million Syrians from their homes. It is terrifying how the deeds of the man who is currently the world's most brutal mass murderer are being relativised and how the focus is increasingly on the crimes of "Islamic State"."

"Everyone [in western capitals] says to us ‘What’s the alternative to Assad and why is the opposition not united?’. But it’s not the revolution’s fault that it’s not united and we can’t wait for unity while the river of blood flows. The alternative to Assad is the ballot box."

"People’s homes are invaded, women and children are taken hostage, because the authorities are not satisfied with arresting an activist – they take the whole family. This is going on in all regions of the country. President Bashar al-Assad said that his government’s priority was ensuring that there is enough baby formula, because that’s more important than freedom. Today he’s doing the opposite: depriving the children of Daraa not only of freedom, but also of milk, since he’s starving the city."

"He represents the case of stubbornness."

"There is one painting [titled Betrayal] that speaks to me on an emotional level. [President] Bashar al-Assad should look at this painting. He probably would see a big part of himself inside it. He might recognize the evil presented in this painting in himself. That’s the point of every painting in this room: They are designed for people to come to terms with their own capacity to commit horrible acts. If we don’t understand the root of violence, then we’ll never be able to protect ourselves from committing it."

"Everybody knows what this regime is capable of doing, including people who favour Assad. And everybody knows what's happening in Syrian jails. Of course the regime denies all these charges. But do you remember the photographs by Caesar who took pictures of torture victims in a military hospital and then smuggled them out of the country? After he published them in 2013, many Syrians looked through them in order to identify missing family members and friends. I discovered a good friend. He was arrested one and a half years beforehand and then tortured to death. Western countries look at the Syrian civil war and say: "If we have to choose the lesser of two evils, we'd rather live with Assad.""

"Assad's bombs gave life to IS in Syria. People have been radicalised and ultimately, view IS as a protector of Sunnis. Assad's air strikes on cities, like Aleppo, or the targeted infrastructure attacks, were fatal. His assaults killed seven times more civilians than IS has."

"Yes, we have understood – Assad is not the lesser evil, but a war criminal. It is not IS that kills the most civilians, but the regime in Damascus (and Russia has to date killed more civilians than IS and the Nusra Front together). And a leader who is indicted for crimes against humanity in this country cannot be made a partner in the war on terror."

"As long as foreign Shia militias are allowed to murder as they please on Assad's behalf, the radicalisation of Syria's majority Sunni population will continue."

"The Syrian conflict has several narratives, all of which are jostling for media supremacy. In the end, the one that is being heard most clearly is that of Bashar al Assad."

"In Syria, the "good" war against terror looks something like this: all Syrians who are against Assad are cast as "terrorists", "tools of US imperialism" or "puppets" of Saudi Arabia or Turkey. They have practically no will of their own, they have not experienced any misery and are completely dehumanised. Assad himself on the other hand is seen as the legitimate president of a sovereign state, as a "quiet, thoughtful man", as Jurgen Todenhofer described him."

"It′s a great failure for humanity. What is happening in Syria is not just a Syrian affair. The oppression of the Syrian people by the Assad regime also concerns us in the West. "IS" draws its power from the dictatorship′s oppression."

"...But the international community doesn′t want to act on it. They see intervention as too complicated for them. Syria is a sovereign state and Assad an elected president. Even if he wasn′t elected democratically, he is recognised as having been elected. And then there′s the fact that he and his wife look like us. His wife is very beautiful. She doesn′t wear a veil and they both appear "civilised". So it′s much more difficult to see the barbarism there than it is with the members of "IS", who post their crimes on social media for all to see."